Remember that you are writing for the compositor. Every letter must be right. If you do a good piece of work it is altogether probable that your composition will get into one of the local papers.
VII. Suggested Reading
Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Pudd’nhead Wilson, or Roughing It.
VIII. Memorize
GOETHALS, THE PROPHET ENGINEER
A man went down to Panama
Where many a man had died
To slit the sliding mountains
And lift the eternal tide:
A man stood up in Panama,
And the mountains stood aside.For a poet wrought in Panama
With a continent for his theme,
And he wrote with flood and fire
To forge a planet’s dream,
And the derricks rang his dithyrambs
And his stanzas roared in steam.Where old Balboa bent his gaze
He leads the liners through,
And the Horn that tossed Magellan
Bellows a far halloo,
For where the navies never sailed
Steamed Goethals and his crew;So nevermore the tropic routes
Need poleward warp and veer,
But on through the Gates of Goethals
The steady keels shall steer,
Where the tribes of man are led toward peace
By the prophet-engineer.Percy MacKaye.[1]
[←Contents]
CHAPTER VI
HUMOROUS ITEMS
“To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth.”—Pliny.
I. Introduction
Laughter, when it hurts nobody, is wholesome. It is the handmaid of happiness. It enriches life. Pleasant but not silly humor and wit are therefore altogether desirable in a paper. Few days in anybody’s life are devoid of incidents that tickle the fancy. Material for good humorous stories is abundant everywhere. The faculty of recognizing it when it is seen, and the ability to present it effectively, however, need a little training. To make a beginning in these directions is the object of the exercises that follow.